| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: veritable white hazel-nut of the Alps.
The Rue Perrin-Gasselin is one of the narrow thoroughfares in a square
labyrinth enclosed by the quay, the Rue Saint-Denis, the Rue de la
Ferronnerie, and the Rue de la Monnaie; it is, as it were, one of the
entrails of the city. There swarm an infinite number of heterogeneous
and mixed articles of merchandise, evil-smelling and jaunty, herrings
and muslin, silks and honey, butter and gauze, and above all a number
of petty trades, of which Paris knows as little as a man knows of what
is going on in his pancreas, and which, at the present moment, had a
blood-sucker named Bidault, otherwise called Gigonnet, a money-lender,
who lived in the Rue Grenetat. In this quarter old stables were filled
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: few Portuguese who were scattered over Abyssinia. These measures I
could not approve.
At length, when it appeared that the viceroy had neither forces nor
authority sufficient for this undertaking, it was agreed that I
should go immediately into Europe, and represent at Rome and Madrid
the miserable condition of the missions of Abyssinia. The viceroy
promised that if I could procure any assistance, he would command in
person the fleet and forces raised for the expedition, assuring that
he thought he could not employ his life better than in a war so
holy, and of so great an importance, to the propagation of the
Catholic faith.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: angularity of her face, which recalled the exaggerated proportions of
certain Swiss heads. The character of their countenance--the features
being marked by a total want of harmony--was that of hardness in the
lines, sharpness in the tones; while an unfeeling spirit, pervading
all, would have filled a physiognomist with disgust. These
characteristics, fully visible at this moment, were usually modified
in public by a sort of commercial smile,--a bourgeois smirk which
mimicked good-humor; so that persons meeting with this old maid might
very well take her for a kindly woman. She owned the house on shares
with her brother. The brother, by-the-bye, was sleeping so tranquilly
in his own chamber that the orchestra of the Opera-house could not
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